Keith-Albee Theatre

A $2 million vaudeville palace from 1928 designed by Thomas W. Lamb with an atmospheric night-sky ceiling, haunted by at least three distinct presences. The Lady in Red, a woman in 1940s dress and heels, appears in the mirrored parlor of the mezzanine ladies' room. Two electrocuted electricians haunt the basement, and a maintenance worker who died in the projection room leaves shadows visible through the booth window.

Christina Bragg was on a 9th-grade school trip when she saw the Lady in Red in the mirror. The mezzanine ladies' room at the Keith-Albee Theatre has a mirrored parlor before you reach the actual restroom, and the woman in the 1940s red dress and high heels appeared in the glass for just a moment before vanishing. Bragg isn't alone. Visitor after visitor describes the same experience: a fleeting glimpse of a woman in red in the mirrors, then nothing.

The Keith-Albee opened on May 7, 1928, after 14 months of construction that consumed 550 tons of steel and several million bricks. Brothers Abe and Sol Hyman built it for $2 million (roughly $36 million today), and the Huntington Herald-Dispatch called it a "temple of amusement." The architect was Thomas W. Lamb, a Scottish-born designer responsible for approximately 150 theaters worldwide. He built the Keith-Albee in New Spanish Baroque style with an atmospheric ceiling designed to look like a night sky, complete with tiny lights arranged as stars. The audience sat in what felt like an ornate outdoor courtyard surrounded by the faux facades of village homes.

The opening night performance on May 8 featured Rae Samuels, nicknamed the "Blue Streak of Vaudeville," performing as part of the Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit run by moguls B.F. Keith and Edward Albee. The theater seated approximately 3,000 people. It was, by every measure, the grandest building in Huntington.

The grandeur came with a body count. Two electricians were electrocuted in the basement during the theater's history. A maintenance worker died in the projection room. A homeless man reportedly froze to death below the stage during a winter when no one realized he'd been sleeping there. Each death maps to a paranormal hotspot in the building.

The projection room, where the maintenance man died, is one of the most active areas. Staff and visitors report movement and shadows visible through the projection booth window, as if someone is still working the equipment in a room that's been empty for years. The basement, which includes a tunnel system that's spawned its own folklore, carries a persistent reputation. Jeremy Snyder, a local who shared his experience online, described the tunnel legends as something every Huntington kid grows up hearing about.

The mezzanine level belongs to the Lady in Red. She's the theater's most famous ghost, described consistently across accounts as a woman in a 1940s-style red dress and high heels. The mirrored parlor of the ladies' room is her primary haunt, but she's been spotted wandering other parts of the mezzanine as well. Nobody knows who she was. There's no documented death of a woman in a red dress at the theater, no tragic backstory that links a specific person to the figure. She just appears, always in the same outfit, always near the mirrors.

The basement-level ladies' room has its own presence, different from the Lady in Red. This one is heard and felt rather than seen. Courtney Lemon described the overwhelming sensation of "someone coming right up behind you" on the stairs leading down. Carolyn Paetow documented a similar feeling at the second landing. A visitor named Angie, who described herself as sensitive to spirits, confirmed the presence independently. Children seem to pick up on it, too. One woman recalled telling her mother "someone was in the bathroom with us" during a childhood visit, despite no one else being visible.

The Keith-Albee is one of the few theaters in West Virginia that survived the demolition wave of the 1960s and 70s. It's still an active performing arts center, hosting concerts, comedy shows, and community events. The night sky ceiling still works. The mirrors in the mezzanine parlor are still there.

Most haunted theater stories lean on a single ghost doing predictable things. The Keith-Albee has at least three distinct presences operating in different parts of the building, each tied to a different kind of death, each reported by different people who didn't know about the others. The Lady in Red gets the headline, but the invisible presence on the basement stairs might be the more unnerving encounter. You see the Lady in Red and you have a story. You feel something following you down the stairs and you just want to leave.